Title: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair
Disclaimer: not my characters. Title from Langston Hughes.
Warnings: violence/death/talk of torture. I also allude to two terrible historical events, but he's the Winter Soldier so that's basically a given. Also, organized crime.
Pairings: Steve/Bucky
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 435
Point of view: third
Prompt: Avengers movieverse, Bucky Barnes, 5 kills, one rescue
1941
"Hey, Barnes," Joe says as they leave the docks, "you should know that Rogers is in trouble with the Sicilians."
Bucky sighs. "Of course he is. What'd he do this time?"
Joe laughs. "You musta taught him some moves 'cause he put one of the boss's boys on the ground. Pride, you know?"
Bucky glances around but there's no one close enough to hear, so he tells Joe, "You let him know that I'll do whatever it takes to keep Steve protected, y'hear?"
Nodding, Joe claps him on the back. "You'll get a message by nightfall tomorrow, Barnes."
.
The price of Steve's protection is a snitch. They want him to die in pain and Bucky – well, it's more than just Steve's protection. It's more food in his sisters' bellies, less worry on Ma's face, fewer hours for Pa at work.
They want him to die in pain, and to know exactly why. So Bucky locks away the part of him that would hesitate and thinks about Steve with blood on his face, Becca and Livy and Jules with tears in their eyes, and then he makes the snitch die badly.
...
1944
Every single time he pulls the trigger on those Hydra bastards, he imagines that ratty doctor's face. He doesn't count them.
They don't count.
...
1955 - 2014
It is awakened. It is recalibrated. It is given mission parameters. It finds the target, does as ordered, and returns to base. It is maintained, recalibrated, and returned to sleep.
(Eventually, he will remember most of their faces. Some are forever lost.
Eventually, he will avoid non-fiction history texts because of the things they spark in his mind.)
1976, it was in Thailand. 1994, it was in Rwanda.
You shaped the century, it will eventually be told.
(You shaped the century. No, he did not, he will realize. He did nothing. He was a weapon, nothing more than a knife or a rifle.)
It is awakened.
...
2016
There has been a man following Yelena around. The criminals of Miami learned soon after Bucky arrived to leave certain sectors alone, so this man, whoever he is, is a newcomer. He has not learned the rules, or else he chooses not to follow them.
Yelena is fourteen years old. She is a clever, kind girl who happens to be quite dear to Bucky. Bucky was gone for a little while, so perhaps the local crime lords forgot the lesson?
He takes great care to teach it again.
...
2014
He slips into the warehouse to escape the rain and hears - Stevie?-someone gasping for air.
He investigates.
